Sonic Branding Destinations Music Festivals – Review

Destinations use music festivals to attract travelers to their shores in growing number and the 2018 music festival season is gearing up to be a banner year.

This year’s festivals have already posted lineups across social media and it is a dizzying variety. Starting in 2018 Vujaday set high stakes by creating a riveting Music Festival Safari in Barbados –See this review here.

It is a taste of things to come.

Right now Boston is calling with Eminem, Jack White and The Killers for its festival at the Harvard Athletic Complex on May 25 to 27.

There are hundreds of festival planned for destinations from every corner of the globe. From Creamfields (Daresbury, UK) to Rock on the Range (Winnipeg, MB, Canada).

New Standards for 2018 by Vujaday

All pale in comparison to breath of Vujaday music festival in Barbados. That festival set a new standard in organization and depth of artist and venues- 5 separate location were stages and over 50 international DJ took to the sage- Its worth sharing a few samples and reviews of the 5 days on non stop music.

But the real advantage was of course the thousands of fans who enjoy the music and can’t await to spread the word and to return to the Island that hosted it all.

Destination Branding & Music Festivals

From a branding perspective it shows Barbados is a with-it destination and introduced it to an entirely new audience. Having a new venue each night gave visitors a taste of island culture and showed them a diversity; from beaches to stately homes, plantations and rugged invigorating coastal communities. Some fans referred to it as the Barbados Vujaday Musical Safari.

Clearly music festivals have a huge impact on branding a destination. The lineup for 2018 is impressive. From Prima Vera Sound in Barcellona to Melt in Germany with endless music festival in the Uk, USA and Canada to name just a few hot locations.

The question is does a music festival help brand a destination. Its a nuanced discussion as it touches on the subject of sonic branding, music marketing and the gender of promoting festivals to drive traffic to a destination. Here the association with particular artists can have a significant impact – Barbados of course is home of Rhianna and that drives score of her fans to the site, But is it the right brand for the average boutique clientele. The Bahamas seeks out social influences like and is rumored to have paid Kendall Jenner $250,000 to promote the event on her Instagram account. So having a company like Vujaday stage an event in your destination and promote it through all their collateral and influencers must be worth a ton.

Events as Branding

The most successful and honest festival branding, it seems, relies on creating a holistic identity based on the more abstract and experiential concepts of the music and sound. “There’s an awful lot of effort in festivals—each one is trying to distinguish themselves from one another. A festival is essentially an outdoor space—a field or a glade or lake or forest in nature—what can you do to make that distinguished? That’s what we love to create. A festival is also a thing you can lose yourself in. It’s a little like the Christmas feeling and everything associated with that feeling: people let themselves go in ways that at any other time of year might seem a little odd – but these things suddenly become really exciting once you’re there, on a weekend in July.” Kiffer Keegan, Work Order – see https://eyeondesign.aiga.org